Captain Jack Harkness: Alternative Ending
by Flawed Heroine
Summary: What would have happened had Jack not been able to get to the Rift in time? Oneshot. Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood.


**Do you know, I think I have a serious Torchwood fanfic writing problem? I literally wrote this in two hours because the idea was bugging me so much, and I said to myself - I'll just start it and I'll get it finished another day. Alack, it's already done. Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes, my hands were typing so fast I don't know what came out of it.**

**Oh, so onto the story. It's a oneshot - an alternative ending that was inspired partly by "Captain Jack Harkness" (the episode) and partly by the Doctor Who episode "Blink". Dedicated to Billy Shipton, the poor old guy who had to wait 38 years to tell a girl he'd met in a carpark to look at a list of DVDs.**

**Here we go... Please read and review x**

* * *

Jack didn't want to think about the irony or the weirdness that he was kissing the man he'd stolen his name from. In fact the strangest part about it all was that the man was kissing him - Jack knew enough about history (in fact, he had lived through this era at least once before) to know that this would have been socially unacceptable in most circles, especially in the army. Nevertheless, it was this Captain Jack, the unassuming squadron captain with all the constrictions of a 1941 world who pulled him into a dance. And kissed him. In front of a crowd of people, no less. Jack wanted to savour this moment and hold him forever, but he knew he couldn't. Not now. Not this time.

"Jack we need to get out!" Toshiko yelled once more, encompassed by a blast of extremely bright light. "Jack, we haven't got much time!"

Jack finally pulled away from the other Jack, their lips only millimetres apart as Jack looked at him with a complex combination of appreciation and sorrow. He began to head to toward the Rift - the other people in the were hidden by the haze of white light, leaving only the confused Captain in the middle of the dancefloor. Jack didn't want to leave him. The Captain straightened to attention, saluting Jack. Jack lingered just a little longer, the corners of his mouth pulling into a sad smile.

"Jack!" Toshiko screamed, and all at once the white light was gone.

**...**

Gwen was in her car outside the dance hall when she heard doors opening. In her rear-view mirror, she saw Tosh, as she was when she left the Hub only hours ago, in a plum coloured dress and her silky black hair done up in a very flattering chignon. Gwen leapt out of the car when she saw her.

"Oh!" She cried, running up to Toshiko and pulling her into a hug. "You made it! You made it! You made it. Oh, Tosh, come here, come here, come here!"

"I'm fine!" Toshiko protested, stepping away from Gwen. Gwen laughed, but then saw the tears in Toshiko's eyes. That's when Gwen realised - Toshiko was alone.

"Where's Jack?" Gwen asked, the traces of laughter on her face being overcome quite rapidly by anxiety.

Toshiko didn't answer.

"Tosh, where is Jack?" Gwen asked more forcefully, her hand resting on Toshiko's shoulder.

"He wouldn't come," Toshiko said unbelievingly, apparently in shock. "The Rift closed before he could make it."

Gwen felt her jaw drop and it was as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. "No. Not him."

Toshiko knew what she had meant to say, what she would have been thinking, because she was thinking it too. _Why couldn't it have been you?_

**...**

Back at the Hub, Gwen and Toshiko arrived to a strange scene - Owen trying to pull a bullet out of his shoulder in the most unsanitary of places - his desk - and Ianto sitting on the other side of the Hub, almost smiling smugly. As Tosh held out a metal tray out for Owen to assist him, she explained what had happened in 1941.

"It was wartime, I know, but it was beautiful," she whispered softly, lost in thought. "I guess Jack just wanted to stay too long. He was about to leave, but he didn't make it."

"What could have been so important that he would risk everything?" Owen muttered bitterly, wincing as he dropped a piece of bloodied gauze into the tray Tosh was holding.

"I don't know," Toshiko lied. She didn't want to have to explain about the other Jack, and the kiss. Not only because it was complicated and she felt too tired to go into it, but because she had suspected for some time now a relationship blooming between Jack and Ianto, and she didn't know if it was her place to say.

"I knew we did the right thing, opening the Rift," Owen said. Ianto turned and looked at him.

"Still no sign of Bilis," he noted.

"World didn't end after all, did it? Good job you're a crap shot," Owen sneered.

"I was _aiming_ for your shoulder," Ianto rebuffed, almost hurt at the notion that he would have wanted to kill Owen.

"We could open the Rift again, get Jack back," Owen suggested.

"No," Ianto said staunchly.

"Why not?" Gwen asked, suddenly coming out of her silence which she had slipped into ever since entering the Hub. "If we did it before, we can do it again - like Owen said, the world didn't end. We could bring him back."

"It was dangerous enough the first time," Ianto said, shaking his head. "And besides - he could have moved since the Rift opened. We need to know his co-ordinates for that to work."

"Do you really think Jack's that stupid?" Gwen asked, a slight waver in her voice.

"No, it's just-"

"Then we bring him back. We can't just leave him in 1941, Ianto!" She interrupted.

"Listen, we all feel bad about what's happened but we can't just go ahead and forget everything we've been taught - Owen got extremely lucky and even then, the Rift is going to be extremely volatile from this point onwards," Ianto explained.

"Who put him in charge, anyway?" Gwen asked rudely.

"Beats me," Owen said, glancing at his shoulder.

"There has to be something we can do," Gwen said, calming down, blushing at her behaviour towards Ianto. She couldn't help it - she was so angry.

"There is," Toshiko murmured. "We can remember him."

**...**

In the boardroom, Toshiko lit a single candle - the only one she could find around the Hub and sat down in her seat. The rest followed - leaving the one on the far end, Jack's, empty. Toshiko clapped her hands once and the lights went out. The only light in the room came from the tiny candle.

"The first time I met Jack he saved my life," she started. "And he's been doing so ever since. I'll always be grateful to him."

"He came to my house after Lisa died," Ianto revealed. "He told me that everything would be alright, and that he was sorry. That night, he let me cry on his shoulder and somehow I knew I would be okay. I only wish I could have been there for him when he needed me."

"He was more than a leader," Owen spoke more softly than they had ever heard him. "He was a mate, a good one. 'Cause the best mates don't just like you the way you are, they tell you what's wrong with ya, and what needs changing. I'm better for knowing him."

"He's been saving my life since the moment I met him," Gwen said, her eyes glossy with tears in the candlelight. "I only wish I could have done the same."

"He brought me back from the dark." Ianto's voice hitched and they all turned to see a single tear trail down his cheek. "He took my cold, numb body and breathed life into me again. He restarted my heart so that it would start beating faster everytime he walked into the room."

"He did have that affect on people," Owen laughed, and then they all burst into peals of laughter, soon to be replaced by crying.

"I'll miss him," Toshiko said in barely a whisper. "I hope wherever he is he's happy and well. I hope he knows he's missed."

"I can't believe you left me, Jack." Gwen gritted her teeth together. "But just know - wherever you are, more than all the stupid flings I've had, more than Rhys. You came into my life and now I-"

"Hey, what's with the mood-lighting?" A familiar voice interrupted. The all turned around, most of their faces still glistening with tears, to see Jack, military coat and all, standing the doorway of the boardroom. He was the same as they had seen him, only hours ago.

"What-? How did you-?" Toshiko stuttered. Ianto's expression quickly changed from one of shock to one of pure glee and adoration.

"What is this, a seance?" Jack laughed.

"It's your bloody funeral, actually," Gwen said, standing up and grabbing his arm, as if to check that he was real. He was.

Owen shook his head. "You've got alot of explaining to do, mate."

**...**

"There was a Rift aftershock - it only opened for a second but luckily I still standing in the right place and it took me," Jack told them.

"There's no records of Rift activity after Owen opened the Rift, though," Toshiko said, typing into her computer. They were in the main Hub now - Jack took off his coat and handed it to a patiently waiting Ianto.

"Must be a software malfunction," Jack disputed. "Otherwise, how could I be here? Better look into that, Tosh."

He promptly sent them all home - their questions were simply becoming redundant now and the Rift was being disturbingly quiet. But there was something in his look as he spoke to them - a sad and tired disposition that Gwen couldn't quite put her finger on. No-one had seemed to notice it - she eyed his withdrawn expression sceptically one last time before the cog-door rolled shut.

**...**

Later that night, Gwen rolled out of bed quietly (not to wake up Rhys) and put on a fresh outfit, heading to the Hub. There was this one thought, this one niggling suggestion that wouldn't leave her alone. It was almost midnight when she arrived at the Hub - she silently cursed the cog-door for being so loud as she slipped into her workstation, switching on the computer. First, she looked over the Rift activity logs. Tosh was right, there had been absolutely no Rift spikes since she had been pulled through. Then, she looked up the dance hall records. The only interruption to her investigation was when she felt a hand come down on her shoulder. Embarrassingly, she screamed.

"Oh, Jack! I didn't notice you there!" She gasped, trying to catch her breath. He raised his eyebrows, his arms crossed over his chest.

"You shouldn't be here," he said sternly.

"Yeah, well, neither should you according to these records," Gwen countered back. She turned the computer screen to face him.

"What do you mean?" He asked, warily.

"I mean that you said the Rift took you back only seconds after it took Tosh - so why is there a photograph of you at the dance hall, a year later?" She clicked on an obscured window on her computer screen. Dated 1942, the photograph was fuzzy, but it was definitely of him. He was standing in the dance hall, staring into the hallway longingly, where the Rift had last opened. Jack turned away from Gwen and the photograph, breathing hard.

"You waited, didn't you?" Gwen gasped. "All those years, you waited to come back to us."

Jack nodded slowly; he was having a hard time trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Why did you pretend?" Gwen asked, laying a hand on his shoulder. To the surprise of them both, he didn't shrug away from from her.

"Because it's easier that way," he said flatly.

"My God, Jack," Gwen started to cry herself. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too," Jack said solemnly, turning to face her. "Go home, Gwen. Get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Gwen pulled him into a hug, still fighting off tears, and held him closely. As she finally drew herself away from him, preparing to go home (and to bed, hopefully Rhys wouldn't have even known she was gone) she had no idea that in the days ahead, it would be her turn to do the waiting. While Jack had waited 66 years to come back to Torchwood, the next three days would feel like an eternity.


End file.
